Poverty rates rise for 4th straight year to 10.2% in Canada

Canada’s national poverty rate rose again in 2023, hitting 10.2 percent and marking the fourth consecutive year of increases, according to new data from Statistics Canada.

Roughly four million Canadians were living below the poverty line last year, the agency reported in its final Canadian Income Survey 2023. In addition, around 10 million people—representing 25.5 percent of the population in the provinces—faced some level of food insecurity. That’s nearly 1.3 million more than the previous year and continues a three-year upward trend.

Statistics Canada noted that it is updating the way poverty is measured. The revised method, called the 2023 base Market Basket Measure, will take into account new costs such as telecommunications. If applied, this change would increase the national poverty rate by 0.7 percentage points to 10.9 percent, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

“Poverty thresholds are defined for different regions across all Canadian provinces and territories and adjusted for different family sizes,” the agency noted. “Families’ thresholds are then compared with their disposable income to determine their poverty status.”

Regional differences remain significant. Quebec had the lowest poverty rate among provinces at 7 percent, while Nunavut posted the highest among all provines at 43 percent. Other high rates were seen in the Northwest Territories at 17 percent, and both Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia at 12.9 percent. Most provinces reported rates between 10 percent and 12 percent, while Alberta came in lower at 9 percent.

The figures represent a continued reversal of gains made earlier in the decade. In 2020, Canada’s poverty rate had dropped to a record low of 6.4 percent, one year after the federal government enacted the Poverty Reduction Act, which aimed to reduce poverty by 50 percent by 2030.

At the time of the bill’s passage, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it a milestone. “We have delivered in lifting hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of poverty,” he said. “We are continuing to demonstrate leadership.”